@brainblaze6526 check out the FedEx Flight 705 incident. Involved a jump flight pilot (another pilot, within the company, hitching a ride to another location) attempting to take over the flight and fighting with the pilots. It's an INSANE incident that sounds like a scene from a movie. And likely why some of these rules are in place.
5:35 "you can't just open the emergency exits in the air though, can you?" you might not wanna google what boeing has been doing the last decades... ignorance is bliss and all that...
Re: the Colombian plane that crashed because it ran out of fuel - It happened in Medellin, Colombia 28 November 2016. The flight was chartered by the Chapecoense football team and LOOOONG story short...the pilot owned half of the airline, skimped on fuel to save money, and refused to call an emergency until the last possible second. The plane went down and 71 of the 77 souls on board perished.
@@cockatoo010 OMG, I don’t recall that one at all. Today I learned something new - seriously, thanks! And also…how freakin’ tragic. For everyone, man. The air traffic controllers, the people on that plane, the families left behind.
A famous one of a captain keeping their cool was Captain Eric Moody who announced after all 4 engines failed and simply said "This is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem and all four engines have stopped. I trust you're not in too much distress"
A QI short retelling this story recently appeared in my feed (the pilot was in the audience and was, indeed, very chill) and I thought of it instantly!
@@OneBentMonkeySame with me! I love QI and over the last few weeks I’ve been having a lot of their shorts and 2-4 minute clips recommended to me and this popped up two days ago. I’d forgotten about this episode and it was great to rewatch it.
Reminds me of the day when I was called on the gate phone "do not look at the passengers, do not repeat what I say. Do NOT panic. There is a bomb next to the runway" ......it was an interesting evening indeed that day when they found a WWII bomb next to the runway and I had to smile serenely at the passengers and tell them that they would depart from another airport (close by) due to a "technical issue" caused by the construction work on the airfield 😅
@@markkarasik2211 Evidently finding unexploded munitions is pretty common around military bases in the US. There is/was a munitions factory in my hometown and the official story is they never tested anything there but local memory and the random exploded deer carcasses that end up next to the road near it say otherwise...
I’m not sure where the 45 minute reserve is coming from. Fuel is calculated based on taxi time, cruise time, fuel for a missed approach, fuel for diversion, and then reserve fuel (for which an emergency is declared). Assuming no missed approach, and no diversion, the plane will have waaaaaay more than 45 minutes. Every stage of flight is calculated for fuel, so there is no arbitrary time limit.
Yeah those 45 minutes are often seen as the bottom line, not just the "extra" - you do not want to touch those 45 min of fuel, and pilots do everything they can to not to use that fuel, so that "fact" really hit me the wrong way. This seems more like a common misconception that people think looks reasonable when in reality, the airline industry is stupidly safe and something as basic as "not running out of fuel" has absolutely already been considered and planned for long before you're in the air. Plus with the whole "carrying more fuel costs more fuel" - nothing is gonna be more expensive than an aircraft worth millions upon millions of dollars crashing and the subsequent investigation declaring that it was the company's guidelines that caused it.
@@TheCatzFranzNeko Exactly. It’s true they don’t carry way more than needed, because it does cost fuel to carry fuel, but they certainly have a WIDE safety margin, far beyond just 45 minutes. Every single phase of flight is calculated and accounted for.
Yeah I'm more afraid of Boeing killing me than I am a terrorist or pilot error. My FIL used to be an airline mechanic and he said the quality nosedived after it got bought out and has only been getting worse and worse. Now he works for the railroad and the quality is just as shoddy there.
8:10 Funny story. Eons ago, there was a flight, United Airlines flight 1, that was JFK to Hong Kong on a 747. When that flight reached Hong Kong airspace, it was given immediate clearance to land because by that point, it was essentially flying on fumes. Once it landed, it typically needed to be towed to its gate. When I was a young agent, my boss decided to bring me on a trip with her as her assistant (she hosted a big travel radio show in NYC back when talk radio was huge) and we flew on that flight. I had no idea until we were coming home and she told me why we landed so quickly. Rules have gotten MUCH tighter since then (her husband carried her carry on bags to the gate for her.....with no ticket. He just went back to work when boarding started - THAT long ago) but I still remember the abject terror I felt on the Hong Kong to San Francisco leg.
@@francoislacombe9071 Actually, no! While (part of) the problem was caused by the recent switch from imperial to metric, at no point was there any confusion between units. The problem was that, when calculating how much the fuel on board weighed, the captain used the wrong conversion factor - specifically, he used the pounds-per-liter number where he should have used the kilos-per-liter number. Also, that was only one of 3 major causes of the incident. Another was that the plane had two fuel sensors, one of which was broken, but a poorly written maintenance log entry and a switch left in the wrong setting during testing gave the captain the impression both of them were broken, thus necessitating the manual calculations in the first place. Finally, the plane _should never have been permitted to take off without a working fuel gauge,_ but insufficiently explicit wording in the rule book and the aforementioned bad log entry (which convinced the captain the plane had *flow in* on two broken gauges, which must have meant it had been approved for flight by the higher-ups before it left the last airport, right?) meant the crew took off anyway. That last one, incidentally is why, while the public celebrated the captain and co-pilot as heroes, the airline and regulator bodies investigated them and censured them. After all, it doesn't matter how heroic your actions are in averting a catastrophe if the catastrophe you are averting is your own fault.
Regarding fuel, there are going to be buffers for every stage of flight from gate to gate, and at the airline level you're going to be getting everything computed based on the flight plan that's in the flight management system (FMS). You rarely see "low on fuel" instances with US-based carriers, because it'll quickly get the attention of the FAA when the report is inevitably made regarding the incident.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress." - Eric Henry Moody, 1982
Simon, if this interests you, it might be worth eyeballing Mentor Pilot for a channel. They cover most of the major airline disasters but you also wind up learning A LOT of smaller things in regards to planes and the flight industry as a whole.
Pilots and surgeons are the chillest people in stressful situations that I've ever seen. They're both in jobs that are literally "life and death" when things go wrong. Edit: Just a correction because this really bugs me... but you don't get "sucked" out of a plane... you get "blown" or "pushed" out. Air moves from high pressure to low pressure.
...that's how all suction devices work. Pumps and vacuums create an area of low pressure, so fluids move into the device. Even "suction" cups work by creating a pocket of low pressure to hold onto surfaces. I know that its technically ambient pressure holding the cups to a surface, but if that's not suction... then I don't know what could be. To summarize: 🤓
@samelecta10122 An aeroplane fuselage is not a "suction" device. It's a tube of high pressure surrounded by lower pressure air. When the fuselage is breached, any object inside will be BLOWN or PUSHED out the breach... not sucked. To summarise: Ignorance.
@@castleanthrax1833Suction is still suction, whether it’s a suction cup, a small hole in the side of a plane at altitude, or your mom, the suction is still the same suction.
It always amuses me how many of these things people actually freak out about like it's a major end of world event. Then everyone in aviation is like "Just another Tuesday."
I was on a flight to Poland, and we started randomly circling. Loads of people started freaking out. Turns out a small light aircraft had crashed into the runway. These people were screaming for parachutes etc. 2 mins later, we diverted to another city for about an hour, then flew back. These people then went from screaming for parachutes to screaming for train ticket refunds.
@@athleticsloth4821 Sounds about right. I did fifteen years in aviation maintenance, and I'm still getting stuff sent to me by family and acquaintances about "bad maintenance". Then they get upset when I reply with "Yeah, that's normal. I can show you the book on how to do it." Everyone thinks they're an expert without understanding any of it.
The #1 way they could stop 'air rage' is to bring back personal space. Don't treat people like chattel that can be squeezed together like sardines without consequence. Provide decent leg room and let seat backs recline. Removing one row of seats and spacing them out like hey were a decade ago would make a HUGE difference.
also giving dignity back to passengers and freeing up in-cabin clutter by allowing one checked bag for every person. it makes no sense to sit on top of people's luggage in the cabin while the cargo area has room to spare. i've seen this on every single intracontinental flight.
2:55 - Mid roll ads 4:25 - Chapter 1 - Flight attendants know how to handle themselves 7:35 - Chapter 2 - Planes are often low on fuel 10:50 - Chapter 3 - Bring your own blanket 13:25 - Chapter 4 - Your pilot might be carrying a gun 18:00 - Chapter 5 - Planes get hit by lighting...a lot PS: 7:50 - Abstemious is a synonym of abstinent *restraint especially in the eating of food or drinking of alcohol* . In that case, the motor is a teetotaler on oil !!!
Yes, Mythbusters did do that thing with handguns and aircraft hulls, I always think of this whenever someone mentions guns and jet aircraft. Mythbusters actually did it, you just hear a slight whistling sound as some of the air escapes through the tiny hole it creates, if it creates one at all. It’s interesting that thing about crew asking if there is a doctor on board, my step father is a doctor and he prefers not to respond to that request unless it really is a genuine emergency because you can then get pestered for the rest of the flight by people concerned about everything from jock itch to their partners hearing loss. Then comes to potential air rage you spoke of. Bugger off, I wanna watch my film!
The answer to Simon's question of why cargo crew can carry a gun is the incident where a company employee tried to crash the plane to solve his financial issues.
The recreation of this incident on the show Mayday: Air Crash Investigation was unlike anything I ever seen. It's insane how badly the three crew members were injured and still landed the plane. Also learning that they lost their job as pilot for life because of the life altering injuries is so sad.
The fuel thing is a lot more nuanced than presented. There's all sorts of minimum requirements, not just a flat 45 minutes extra. Airlines keep meticulous records of a specific aircraft's fuel burn and will present the statistical information to the pilot in the flight plan. While airlines (in the US?) might pressure crew to take as little fuel as possible, the final assessment and load is ALWAYS the captain's prerogative, money be damned. Keep in mind that more fuel = more weight = more fuel required to compensate for the extra weight. The final reserves, alternate fuel, contingency fuel, etc. etc. are all very carefully calculated and each flight is different. If holding patterns are expected because of weather or congestion, you can bet that they're loading extra fuel. There's a BUNCH of regulations regarding how much fuel must be taken on board and it's always more than enough. Fuel starvation has occurred occasionally, but you're much more likely to win the mega millions lottery than to experience running out of fuel on a commercial flight in the western world.
Theres several variables that the pilots add fuel for including, decompression, weather, routing, and historical data. The FAA minimum for IFR flight, is adequate fuel to reach the destination, and divert to the alternate(s) plus the 45 minutes. I've been in a situation where we were given a hold and were running low on fuel. All we did was declare to ATC that we would be diverting. We were given an immediate clearance to land.
Guns on Cargo Aeroplanes has been quite widely a thing. Especially when carrying horses. A friend was a Loadmaster on planes which carried Race Horses. One flight, out of NZ years ago, a neddie was freaking out, busting the stall and airframe. The usual gun was missing, he had to use a fire axe to euthanise the horse. He was fired. Bodily fluids are corrosive, the cost and time needed to clean and recertification of the aeroplane was extensive. A gun would have been much less messy.
If there's a threat on the flight, rules in the US are that the flight deck is secured against entry and work to get safely on the ground ASAP. So yeah, the crew on the flight deck isn't going into the cabin with the firearm. The risk of hitting another passenger or the attacker gaining control of the firearm is much higher than if someone trying to get into the cockpit catches a couple of rounds as they try to get through the door.
Or accidentally depressurizing the aircraft if a round goes through the fuselage. While it might not cause the aircraft to crash, at altitude it is an emergency.
@@alwaysbejackalingi don't know what exactly they use but here's my theory... there are special rounds that are supposed to disintegrate when impacting. Frangible i think they're called. Made from metal powder pressed into shape. I'm not sure what the terminal ballistics for those look like but they might be a viable option to carry on a plane. Additionally, i believe there used to be specialized revolvers for carrying on aircraft that could only fire rounds that wouldn't lead to catastrphic situations when used inside a plane. Frames were made much lighter so they couldn't fire anything more potent without exploding 😂
I find it interesting that given Dave is blind that Simon doesn't have the writers names listed in the description for the visually impared to be able to have their pc read the writers name to them via the description because even when Simon says the writers name it's only the first name.
The one ATC story I love that’s similar to your Columbia air tangent is a pilot has an engine failure and is landing a 737 or something on one engine… ATC is like “are you declaring an emergency?” Pilot “no, no… it’s not an emergency. Just requesting clearance to land on 14A” “Oh… yea… just engine failure, no big deal right? Yes, cleared to land 14A, do you require emergency services?” “No… no, I don’t think so” “Okay, emergency services will be waiting for you” The nonchalantness of that pilot is astounding.
to be fair, while it should be declared an emergency for priority, engine failure is rarely a big deal nowadays when most planes have more than 2 engines. i mean, assuming there's no smoke or fire.
@@chrisrelhard What do you mean? The norm today is twinjets. There are still trijets and quadjets flying but no quadjets are still in production and the only trijets still in production are small business jets.
@bassbass69 and also a plane can fly on only a single engine… but you’re also trained to know that an engine out may only be a symptom and not the actual problem itself and the plane should be landed as soon as possible.
There was a fedex flight some years ago that was part of an attempted hijacking by an off duty pilot catching a ride on the flight. He attempted to kill the pilots and hijack to purposefully crash the flight in order to commit suicide and give his family an insurance payout for his death, all while covering up the evidence in the subsequent crash. He wasn’t successful but it’s a prime example of why guns can be of use on cargo flights. Or at least they could be of use in those situations but few if any others on cargo flights.
My father was a fighter pilot. He never really talked about it with anyone, but I agree with you Simon, it is a profession that sounds pretty damn cool.
found out my grandfather's brother was in the army air corps in WWII. my grandfather was stuck hauling timber from Oregon to San Francisco for the pacific front.
I also remember a story on the news in the 70s when Canada was just switching to the metric system. A plane crash was investigated and it was discovered that the plane had simply run out of fuel because the fuel was ordered in one unit and the person fuelling the plane used the unit in the other system (I think it was ordered in kg and filled in lbs)
My dad recently finished a career in electro-magnetic compatibility testing. He personally designed some of the machines to test control equipment for safety when lightning strikes the craft.
While the flight crew training is technically open to all, generally the only that gets approved to get trained are former police, military, and active reservists. 14:07
As someone who was flying over the Amazon forest and the plane actually got hit by lightning TWICE... I can testify it is scary as hell... but it taught me one thing: only get scared when the flight attendants are...
Off work and looking so forward to this... got my comfy pj's on, a plate full of tacos and my pup dog laying next to me.... and a new BB 💕 life is good 💕 hope everyone is well!!! Now onto some rants and laughs✌
You can open airplane doors in flight... just only at really low altitudes. The door is seal against the plane mainly by the difference in air pressure inside vs outside the plane. IIRC this is about 4 or 5 PSI and the door is several hundred square inches so that is more than one (or two or three) people can handle. On the other hand if you are really low... outside and inside pressures are equalised so it is just a door... (lookup asiana door open in flight)
😎 Don't forget there's one sunken in the sediment off Tybee Island here in Georgia. But I wasn't thinking a broken arrow situation but more that no Enemy bombs have been dropped here in the States except at Pearl Harbor. We bombed the Aleutians in Alaska when Japan tried to invade there, and we've accidentally bombed ourselves fairly often.
2:30 Simon says (lol) he is going on a plane in a month and what is the first thought? Let's make a script about things you dont want to know while flying and have him read it the week before. What's next? Movie night the day before will be Final Destination?
I was returning to the US from a business trip to Ireland in 2014. The British Airways A380 to LAX was scheduled to leave Heathrow at 4:30 PM local time. After some time, perhaps 45 minutes, we hadn’t departed. The captain announces, and these were his exact words: “We have to reboot this aircraft”. At the time I was a database administrator; I’d be3n working on an E-Business implementation - I’d also worked as a Unix Sysadmin. Hearing this, my IT orientation imagined all kinds of things (aside: rebooting is an often used method to resolve problems on servers or is done as part of patching or maintenance) The captain turned everything and I mean everything off. We sat for a half hour in darkness and silence - then everything came back on, and the captain says, “there’s a leak in the cargo area; regulations require a supply of drinkable water for take off - the luggage will have to be unloaded and the leak repaired”. We sat for another 2 hours (we weren’t allowed to deplane), then took off We arrived at LAX very early morning, 1-2 AM Pacific. As there were limited Jetways to accommodate the A380, we landed practically in Santa Monica and 12 buses were dispatched to take the passengers to Bradley Terminal. TSA was not thrilled at having to process 300+ passengers and 25 crew at that time of day
I work for an airline, here is my take. 1. FAs being trained for self-defense is a fairly new move. It started during the pandemic when people decided to become absolutely horrid to one another and to FAs, far moreso than ever before. Not all airlines do this training, but more and more unions are pushing them to add it where it hasn't been yet. 2. Fuel: there is a sweet spot that is aimed for. No plane is ever going to head out with too little fuel unless there are *unforecasted* storms and then they might not have holding fuel or fuel to a distant alternate on board because it wasn't supposed to be needed. Even so, there is still always enough fuel to divert to a nearby alternate and there is always a nearby alternate. At last check there were 21 incidents in aviation history regarding inadequate fuel (most due to improper maintenance and leaks), while there have been untold billions of flights total (16.5mil flights a year in the US alone, not including GA not controlled by the FAA). The most recent incident in 2023 was because a Cessna pilot passed out and the plane literally just flew until it was out of fuel (same thing happened in 2022, maybe don't fly on private charters). With today's standards for weight and balance, safety, and fueling, don't worry about commercial flights running out of fuel. In case you're still wondering, where I work we are expected to land with no less than 4,400 pounds of fuel on board, which is about an hour of extra flight time. Otherwise you're going into the final reserve, which means a lot of paperwork and explaining why you under-fueled. Avoiding that is preferable. 3. My airline doesn't hand out blankets/pillows, so I can't speak to this. That said, I would NEVER use an airline blanket or pillow for obvious reasons. People are disgusting. 4. Federal Flight Deck Officers (FFDOs) can carry a gun, but someone has to want to, apply for it, pass a background check, and attend training. Most don't bother with this. The ones that do are probably the same ones who have a storm shelter full of canned beans and AR15 ammo. *eyeroll* Most never bother; they are there to fly the plane, not fight terrorists. 5. Oh my gosh so much lightning, haha. It's fine. They're engineered for that. Hail is the real problem. Maybe don't look up pictures of planes that flew through hail cores....
The plane that ran out of fuel in a holding pattern near JFK was an Air Avianca. It crashed adjacent to John McEnroe’s residence in Lloyd’s Neck, Long Island
I was a flight attendant years ago on small, 50-seater planes. We were rarely given clean, washed blankets for our planes. After each flight, we would collect all of the blankets, fold them, and put them back in the overhead bin for passengers to use on the next flight. I know the ones that were wrapped were washed, as I could smell it when the airline was doing laundry.
Simon, did you know that most hotels just change pillow cases and sheets and leave the same pillows and blankets and everything else on the bed unless they're noticeably stained. And most hotels require ridiculously short times to clean rooms from their housekeeping staff
To answer your question at 16:45 regarding firearms in planes. Law enforcement (and I assume pilots) can only use fragment bullets. I will explain the difference: A normal bullet solid head can punch a hole in a person or a plane, which leads to decompression. A fragment bullet is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. Once it leaves the barrel it's like a dozen fragments spreading out at the target. Now they are less lethal, they will incompasicate a person, but it will not puncture a hole in the plane. I.e no risk to it.
FedEx Flight 705 is a good example of why pilots of cargo planes might want to carry firearms. Maybe Simon could do an episode on it. The story is crazy!
Last time I flew ( late 1980's) due to my broken back I stood in the Galley with the stewards. Only time I sat was take-off & landing. This was a 4 hour flight which means I was standing for a little over 3 hours. Now a days I would get locked up. We hit some moderate turbulence and I was fine. A woman in the last row was freaking and I walked up to her and calmed her down. When I went back to my seat for landing she said she thought I was part of the crew. I said no, but she did thank me for calming her down.
being taught how to handle one's self and being able to actually handle one's self in a conflict are very different things, unless a person actively trains and spars on a weekly basis, they are really not much better than an average person when in a physical altercation. The major hindrance for most ppl when in a physical altercation is anxiety and fear, something that requires constant training to nullify, simply being taught some "self-defence techniques" often isn't enough.
9:54 The incident Simon is referring to is this one, when an airplane was forced into multiple holds on their way up the coast due to a stubborn east coast storm that prevented the plane (among many others) from landing and resulted in tons of delays. "Avianca Flight 52, a Boeing 707-321B arriving from Bogotá and Medellin, crashed at Cove Neck, Long Island, after a missed approach to runway 22L at JFK and subsequently running out of fuel. 73 passengers and crew perished while 85 survived". The crew did not do a good job communicating to JFK control how low on fuel they were, and I think only called a "Mayday" when they were finally on their way in but completely out of fuel.
I know you credit the writer on screen during videos but I feel they should also be credited in the descriptions of videos as well for those who listen to the videos and want to know who wrote the episode, or for those episodes you don't say the writer's name out loud for those who happen to be visually handicapped.
I once dined with a guy who used to own an aerospace parts factory (that much I could confirm). He bragged about knowing where the fire axes on most modern Airbus variants are, and not all possible locations are apparently in the cockpit (this I had to take his word for it).
Yes, Simon, if you declare an emergency, you can land at any available airport on any available runway. Declare the emergency, but, most importantly, continue to fly the plane. Neither your words nor ATC can land the plane for you, unless your aircraft is set up for a Category 2/Category 3 autoland and your engines are still running.
There have been a couple of cases were airliners have ran out of fuel. A couple of times with conversion errors ie. One famous was a plane over the atlantic that ran out, and glided into the azores and landed 45ish minutes later. Must be nice being a passenger noticing all engines go out over the ocean - and yeah, lights etc also.... But the pilots pretty quickly calculated how to glide in, so they knew it would be "fine" - Im sure tense for them as well
the most famous is the "gimli glider" where a canadian crew at the time of metrication, calculated their fuel in gallons and purchased it in liters, resulting in running out of fuel halfway to their destination, and gliding to a landing on a retired runway that was being used as a drag strip. (the name of the place they landed was "gimli", or something sufficiently similar)
Stress and Anxiety can cause rage... That's probably the reason for both examples. When you're focused and computer lag is slowing down your work... you get rage. When you're anxious and fixating on every single thing you can be quick to rage because everyone else isn't taking it as serious as you think it is.
Ive only now realized thats Simon keeps yelling at his plant, Peter. Ive always heard PETA and wondered if PETA was giving factboy a hard time over the whole dog genocide thing. . . HA!
About it not being possible to open an emergency exit in flight these days: There was news that on May 26, 2023 a man opened an emergency exit on a South Korean Airbus A321-200. The plane landed safely and the man was arrested. Reuters reported: "The plane was two or three minutes away from landing when the male passenger sitting next to an emergency exit opened a cover and pulled a lever so the door opened with the plane about 200 metres (656 ft) off the ground".
" Ladies and gentlemen, everything is fine, there are no problems. That engine was jettisoned as we didn't need it anymore and we can save the weight. "
Because of the pressurized cabin, it is physically impossible to open the door in flight. Unless the cabin loses all pressure, or the door fails and breaks, no human being would be able to overcome the force on the door and pull it open.
@@marctaylor1142 as I said in the comment, unless the door fails, you cannot pull it open. A functional door has literally thousands of pounds of pressure pushing against it, holding it closed.
@@Hollylivengood omg 2 in a row?? Learn how to read the comment before you make yourself look stupid. Obviously a broken door is a completely different story.
@@marctaylor1142 A door plug fell off a plane, which isn't exactly the same as a door. One that wasn't installed (or reinstalled from what I heard) correctly before that happened. I believe not installed correctly would fit into "fails or breaks" as its missing parts weren't holding it in place -- and it wasn't a human pushing on that door plug for it to fall off. Now that said, there was also a door that was opened while in flight (it did not fall off the plane) which was thought to be impossible, but this occurred at low altitude and speed as the plane was landing. As this was nearing the ground, the aircraft no longer had a huge difference in pressure internally vs externally, which again makes @itstonberrytime pretty much correct.
I think Simon is right about the gun in the cockpit, thing. That way a pilot doesn't accidentally hit a passenger, also firing in the passenger area would probably be the job of the Flight Marshall. But if they make it past attendants, Marshall's, cockpit door, etc then yeah, pilot can start blasting.
Reminds me of a time when I was on an international flight and the plane that kept circling because of a storm, and after a long time the pilot said: “We’re running out of fuel, so I’m gonna find a place to land, or whatever” We ended up landing on a farm in the middle of nowhere
Simon didn't know about the Fedex cargo flight with an employee who was hoping a ride, attacked the two pilots with a hammer attempting to kill them. The New York fuel story was Avianca Airlines from Bogota January 1990. About half the people onboard survived the crash.
When it comes to the amount of fuel on a plane, keep in mind that the Captain has to approve of the amount of fuel that the plane carries, and they're flying on the plane with you. If a pilot is afraid that the plane will fall out of the sky while they're on it, they will insist that more fuel is put on the plane, and the plane isn't going anywhere without two pilots.
Simon there is a case of a FedEx pilot who was about to lose his job, while going through a divorce with two kids in high school. To set his family up with enough money he determined that catching a ride with another crew, incapacitating them and letting the 30 minute cockpit voice recorder (CVR)run out, then cutting the power to the CVR and flight data recorder (black box) and crashing the plane....into FedEx headquarters so they could cash in on his life insurance was the way to go. Lots of pilots have crashed on purpose cargo or passenger flights it isn't always passengers the other people on the flight deck can be suicidal.
The reason why pilots can't shoot into cabin is because you need to be a very good marksman to not hit passengers (including through secondary penetration). Flight Marshals are trained for shooting in these situations and require much more stringent training and recertification than pilots.
There is always a doctor onboard. Passenger medical emergencies are quite common and every time I've dealt with one there is always a doctor onboard. Although my favourite was when a pilot asked if security was waiting at the gate when they had a medical emergency, when asked why they needed security for a medical issue they stated, the passenger got violent, so they "knocked them out", that was why they now had a medical issue 😂
That joke about the 4 engines actually happened on BA flight 009 in 1982. Flew through a volcanic eruption. The chill captain passed away last month (March 2024). RIP Captain Moody.
12:54 yeah but that's like saying I'm going to take my own bedding to a hotel. They take the same level of "care and attention" to laundry with their bedding.
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Am I right Peter!
@brainblaze6526 check out the FedEx Flight 705 incident. Involved a jump flight pilot (another pilot, within the company, hitching a ride to another location) attempting to take over the flight and fighting with the pilots. It's an INSANE incident that sounds like a scene from a movie. And likely why some of these rules are in place.
Once I asked a pilot how far we could fly if all the engines failed and he told me "all the way to the scene of the crash" 😂😅
So when are we going to see you wear a pair of these to show us how they fit😂
5:35 "you can't just open the emergency exits in the air though, can you?"
you might not wanna google what boeing has been doing the last decades...
ignorance is bliss and all that...
Re: the Colombian plane that crashed because it ran out of fuel -
It happened in Medellin, Colombia 28 November 2016. The flight was chartered by the Chapecoense football team and LOOOONG story short...the pilot owned half of the airline, skimped on fuel to save money, and refused to call an emergency until the last possible second. The plane went down and 71 of the 77 souls on board perished.
There was another one that crashed at JFK. Avianca airlines if I remember right. It happened in 1990
Simon was probably thinking of Avianca 52 which crashed in Cove Neck, NY during like their third approach onto JFK
@@cockatoo010 OMG, I don’t recall that one at all. Today I learned something new - seriously, thanks!
And also…how freakin’ tragic. For everyone, man. The air traffic controllers, the people on that plane, the families left behind.
Wow! Absolutely devastating
@@cockatoo010 Yes, and it had nothing to do with the flight crew being docile and listening to the flight control.
A famous one of a captain keeping their cool was Captain Eric Moody who announced after all 4 engines failed and simply said "This is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem and all four engines have stopped. I trust you're not in too much distress"
A QI short retelling this story recently appeared in my feed (the pilot was in the audience and was, indeed, very chill) and I thought of it instantly!
@@OneBentMonkeySame with me! I love QI and over the last few weeks I’ve been having a lot of their shorts and 2-4 minute clips recommended to me and this popped up two days ago. I’d forgotten about this episode and it was great to rewatch it.
Captain Moody died in March. RIP
@@OneBentMonkey Same here, that's why it was fresh in my mind, I love air crash investigation though so knew about it beforehand
British airways flight 009
Reminds me of the day when I was called on the gate phone "do not look at the passengers, do not repeat what I say. Do NOT panic. There is a bomb next to the runway" ......it was an interesting evening indeed that day when they found a WWII bomb next to the runway and I had to smile serenely at the passengers and tell them that they would depart from another airport (close by) due to a "technical issue" caused by the construction work on the airfield 😅
Finding a bomb while excavating is certainly quite a serious technical error 😂😂
😎I take it this flight was not in the USA…I can’t imagine finding a lost aerial bomb during an excavation in the states except maybe Hawaii
@@markkarasik2211 Evidently finding unexploded munitions is pretty common around military bases in the US. There is/was a munitions factory in my hometown and the official story is they never tested anything there but local memory and the random exploded deer carcasses that end up next to the road near it say otherwise...
They still find civil war ordinance during construction where I am at @@markkarasik2211
@@UnicornsPoopRainbows 😎 hmm, hadn’t thought of that. Someone was pretty cavalier about those old bombs…
I’m not sure where the 45 minute reserve is coming from. Fuel is calculated based on taxi time, cruise time, fuel for a missed approach, fuel for diversion, and then reserve fuel (for which an emergency is declared). Assuming no missed approach, and no diversion, the plane will have waaaaaay more than 45 minutes. Every stage of flight is calculated for fuel, so there is no arbitrary time limit.
45 minutes I'm pretty sure is an FAA requirement for the reserve for instrument flights, so that part is presented a bit unfairly.
Yeh. Totally BS.
Yeah those 45 minutes are often seen as the bottom line, not just the "extra" - you do not want to touch those 45 min of fuel, and pilots do everything they can to not to use that fuel, so that "fact" really hit me the wrong way. This seems more like a common misconception that people think looks reasonable when in reality, the airline industry is stupidly safe and something as basic as "not running out of fuel" has absolutely already been considered and planned for long before you're in the air. Plus with the whole "carrying more fuel costs more fuel" - nothing is gonna be more expensive than an aircraft worth millions upon millions of dollars crashing and the subsequent investigation declaring that it was the company's guidelines that caused it.
@@TheCatzFranzNeko Exactly. It’s true they don’t carry way more than needed, because it does cost fuel to carry fuel, but they certainly have a WIDE safety margin, far beyond just 45 minutes. Every single phase of flight is calculated and accounted for.
Simon: You can't open those emergency exits in the air, can you?
Boeing 737: You may not be able to, but I can.
Yeah I'm more afraid of Boeing killing me than I am a terrorist or pilot error. My FIL used to be an airline mechanic and he said the quality nosedived after it got bought out and has only been getting worse and worse. Now he works for the railroad and the quality is just as shoddy there.
8:10 Funny story. Eons ago, there was a flight, United Airlines flight 1, that was JFK to Hong Kong on a 747. When that flight reached Hong Kong airspace, it was given immediate clearance to land because by that point, it was essentially flying on fumes. Once it landed, it typically needed to be towed to its gate. When I was a young agent, my boss decided to bring me on a trip with her as her assistant (she hosted a big travel radio show in NYC back when talk radio was huge) and we flew on that flight. I had no idea until we were coming home and she told me why we landed so quickly. Rules have gotten MUCH tighter since then (her husband carried her carry on bags to the gate for her.....with no ticket. He just went back to work when boarding started - THAT long ago) but I still remember the abject terror I felt on the Hong Kong to San Francisco leg.
JFK visited Hong Kong while he was president. Coincidence!? I assume so.
What were they doing during the layovers? I assume not fueling...
After landing at the old Kai Tak airport, there isn’t much that can scare me on a plane.
My personal favourite story of a plane running out of fuel: Air Canada 143 aka The Gimli Glider.
Captain Bob Pearson and FO Maurice Quintal - LEGENDS
Yeah, another instance of mixing up metric and imperial units.
That was a mistake, and the pilots were not aware of it prior to running out of fuel. But seriously, it's an amazing case of ace piloting.
@@francoislacombe9071 Actually, no! While (part of) the problem was caused by the recent switch from imperial to metric, at no point was there any confusion between units. The problem was that, when calculating how much the fuel on board weighed, the captain used the wrong conversion factor - specifically, he used the pounds-per-liter number where he should have used the kilos-per-liter number.
Also, that was only one of 3 major causes of the incident. Another was that the plane had two fuel sensors, one of which was broken, but a poorly written maintenance log entry and a switch left in the wrong setting during testing gave the captain the impression both of them were broken, thus necessitating the manual calculations in the first place. Finally, the plane _should never have been permitted to take off without a working fuel gauge,_ but insufficiently explicit wording in the rule book and the aforementioned bad log entry (which convinced the captain the plane had *flow in* on two broken gauges, which must have meant it had been approved for flight by the higher-ups before it left the last airport, right?) meant the crew took off anyway.
That last one, incidentally is why, while the public celebrated the captain and co-pilot as heroes, the airline and regulator bodies investigated them and censured them. After all, it doesn't matter how heroic your actions are in averting a catastrophe if the catastrophe you are averting is your own fault.
Regarding fuel, there are going to be buffers for every stage of flight from gate to gate, and at the airline level you're going to be getting everything computed based on the flight plan that's in the flight management system (FMS). You rarely see "low on fuel" instances with US-based carriers, because it'll quickly get the attention of the FAA when the report is inevitably made regarding the incident.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."
- Eric Henry Moody, 1982
Simon, if this interests you, it might be worth eyeballing Mentor Pilot for a channel. They cover most of the major airline disasters but you also wind up learning A LOT of smaller things in regards to planes and the flight industry as a whole.
It interests him long enough to read the script put in front of him, then next topic!
I hope this reaches Mentour, i feel a fact check is needed
+1 for Mentour. Also 74 Gear, and Cpt Jack (?).
@@van_trippin5260 I mean he got a pilot license.. so I think he's a bit more interested than that.
Oh, don't worry, there will be several RUclipsrs tearing this apart in the next few days. Isn't that right @74gear.
Ohh my two favourite pilot channels mentioned in one comment thread!!
Pilots and surgeons are the chillest people in stressful situations that I've ever seen. They're both in jobs that are literally "life and death" when things go wrong.
Edit: Just a correction because this really bugs me... but you don't get "sucked" out of a plane... you get "blown" or "pushed" out. Air moves from high pressure to low pressure.
Maybe that's exactly why they are so chill - if you stress out, you're more likely to make a mistake.
...that's how all suction devices work. Pumps and vacuums create an area of low pressure, so fluids move into the device. Even "suction" cups work by creating a pocket of low pressure to hold onto surfaces. I know that its technically ambient pressure holding the cups to a surface, but if that's not suction... then I don't know what could be.
To summarize: 🤓
@samelecta10122 An aeroplane fuselage is not a "suction" device. It's a tube of high pressure surrounded by lower pressure air. When the fuselage is breached, any object inside will be BLOWN or PUSHED out the breach... not sucked.
To summarise: Ignorance.
Make sense though, they have to learn to remain calm in such intense situations that when the situation is casual they must get chill overload
@@castleanthrax1833Suction is still suction, whether it’s a suction cup, a small hole in the side of a plane at altitude, or your mom, the suction is still the same suction.
It always amuses me how many of these things people actually freak out about like it's a major end of world event. Then everyone in aviation is like "Just another Tuesday."
I was on a flight to Poland, and we started randomly circling. Loads of people started freaking out.
Turns out a small light aircraft had crashed into the runway.
These people were screaming for parachutes etc.
2 mins later, we diverted to another city for about an hour, then flew back. These people then went from screaming for parachutes to screaming for train ticket refunds.
@@athleticsloth4821 Sounds about right. I did fifteen years in aviation maintenance, and I'm still getting stuff sent to me by family and acquaintances about "bad maintenance". Then they get upset when I reply with "Yeah, that's normal. I can show you the book on how to do it."
Everyone thinks they're an expert without understanding any of it.
It's literally Murphy's law as Murphy existed he was an airplane engineer
The #1 way they could stop 'air rage' is to bring back personal space. Don't treat people like chattel that can be squeezed together like sardines without consequence. Provide decent leg room and let seat backs recline. Removing one row of seats and spacing them out like hey were a decade ago would make a HUGE difference.
Yes but then they would loose out on the 600$ from those seats to provide and oh no that’s taken out of there bottom line
Also, stop serving alcohol.
also giving dignity back to passengers and freeing up in-cabin clutter by allowing one checked bag for every person. it makes no sense to sit on top of people's luggage in the cabin while the cargo area has room to spare. i've seen this on every single intracontinental flight.
Yes and this will jack the prices back up so that the raging low lives can’t afford to fly. Perfect solution!
@simongarfunkel4040 it's not 'room' that matters on an aircraft. It's weight. If a plane is too heavy. It isn't flying anywhere.
2:55 - Mid roll ads
4:25 - Chapter 1 - Flight attendants know how to handle themselves
7:35 - Chapter 2 - Planes are often low on fuel
10:50 - Chapter 3 - Bring your own blanket
13:25 - Chapter 4 - Your pilot might be carrying a gun
18:00 - Chapter 5 - Planes get hit by lighting...a lot
PS: 7:50 - Abstemious is a synonym of abstinent *restraint especially in the eating of food or drinking of alcohol* . In that case, the motor is a teetotaler on oil !!!
Consulting fighter pilots to write an article about commercial flying is like consulting a F1 driver to write an article about Greyhound Busses
Yes, Mythbusters did do that thing with handguns and aircraft hulls, I always think of this whenever someone mentions guns and jet aircraft. Mythbusters actually did it, you just hear a slight whistling sound as some of the air escapes through the tiny hole it creates, if it creates one at all. It’s interesting that thing about crew asking if there is a doctor on board, my step father is a doctor and he prefers not to respond to that request unless it really is a genuine emergency because you can then get pestered for the rest of the flight by people concerned about everything from jock itch to their partners hearing loss. Then comes to potential air rage you spoke of. Bugger off, I wanna watch my film!
The answer to Simon's question of why cargo crew can carry a gun is the incident where a company employee tried to crash the plane to solve his financial issues.
That was a harrowing case! I learned about it recently.
The recreation of this incident on the show Mayday: Air Crash Investigation was unlike anything I ever seen. It's insane how badly the three crew members were injured and still landed the plane. Also learning that they lost their job as pilot for life because of the life altering injuries is so sad.
@@TommyCrosbyI watched that recently as well. Those 3 guys were so badass but I do feel so bad they could never fly again due to their injuries. ❤
The fuel thing is a lot more nuanced than presented. There's all sorts of minimum requirements, not just a flat 45 minutes extra. Airlines keep meticulous records of a specific aircraft's fuel burn and will present the statistical information to the pilot in the flight plan. While airlines (in the US?) might pressure crew to take as little fuel as possible, the final assessment and load is ALWAYS the captain's prerogative, money be damned. Keep in mind that more fuel = more weight = more fuel required to compensate for the extra weight.
The final reserves, alternate fuel, contingency fuel, etc. etc. are all very carefully calculated and each flight is different. If holding patterns are expected because of weather or congestion, you can bet that they're loading extra fuel. There's a BUNCH of regulations regarding how much fuel must be taken on board and it's always more than enough. Fuel starvation has occurred occasionally, but you're much more likely to win the mega millions lottery than to experience running out of fuel on a commercial flight in the western world.
Theres several variables that the pilots add fuel for including, decompression, weather, routing, and historical data. The FAA minimum for IFR flight, is adequate fuel to reach the destination, and divert to the alternate(s) plus the 45 minutes. I've been in a situation where we were given a hold and were running low on fuel. All we did was declare to ATC that we would be diverting. We were given an immediate clearance to land.
Guns on Cargo Aeroplanes has been quite widely a thing. Especially when carrying horses. A friend was a Loadmaster on planes which carried Race Horses. One flight, out of NZ years ago, a neddie was freaking out, busting the stall and airframe. The usual gun was missing, he had to use a fire axe to euthanise the horse. He was fired. Bodily fluids are corrosive, the cost and time needed to clean and recertification of the aeroplane was extensive. A gun would have been much less messy.
If there's a threat on the flight, rules in the US are that the flight deck is secured against entry and work to get safely on the ground ASAP. So yeah, the crew on the flight deck isn't going into the cabin with the firearm. The risk of hitting another passenger or the attacker gaining control of the firearm is much higher than if someone trying to get into the cockpit catches a couple of rounds as they try to get through the door.
Or accidentally depressurizing the aircraft if a round goes through the fuselage. While it might not cause the aircraft to crash, at altitude it is an emergency.
@@alwaysbejackalingi don't know what exactly they use but here's my theory... there are special rounds that are supposed to disintegrate when impacting. Frangible i think they're called. Made from metal powder pressed into shape. I'm not sure what the terminal ballistics for those look like but they might be a viable option to carry on a plane. Additionally, i believe there used to be specialized revolvers for carrying on aircraft that could only fire rounds that wouldn't lead to catastrphic situations when used inside a plane. Frames were made much lighter so they couldn't fire anything more potent without exploding 😂
Wait... Dave is blind. That means he touched the booger on the pillow? EEEUUUUWWW! Poor guy!
I need a channel where simon reacts to his writers stories
I find it interesting that given Dave is blind that Simon doesn't have the writers names listed in the description for the visually impared to be able to have their pc read the writers name to them via the description because even when Simon says the writers name it's only the first name.
my thoughts exactly
@@vexvoltage6456 He basically does that on his live streams now 😂
@@UnicornsPoopRainbows yeah, but I can’t get enough 🤣
My Great Uncle who was a "boffin" during WW2 actually invented the pressure door!!
Back in the day I was a paratrooper. Don't mind taking half a ride, but I ain't gonna take the whole thing. Cheers from Tennessee
Airborne. When C130 gives birth to Awesome. Third Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment.
It's a bit nasty when they check and see your credit card's flier-miles don't get you to the landing and they throw you out.
@@alanhilder1883 As long as I have a 'chute, I'm cool. Cheers
@@dougstubbs9637 1st Battalion, 75th Infantry, Ranger Regiment. Cheers
It's amazing how I can watch one of your 20 min videos, and I have so much fun, it feels like 5 minutes. I love this channel.
The doors can be opened under 10,000 feet. It has happened within the last year. 74 Gear and Mentour Pilot (sp?) covered it.
Deep memory from Samuel "the critic " ❤
Your dad was a rock Dave.
Nothing beats a 14 min video with 13 mins of tangents 😂😂😂
The one ATC story I love that’s similar to your Columbia air tangent is a pilot has an engine failure and is landing a 737 or something on one engine…
ATC is like “are you declaring an emergency?”
Pilot “no, no… it’s not an emergency. Just requesting clearance to land on 14A”
“Oh… yea… just engine failure, no big deal right? Yes, cleared to land 14A, do you require emergency services?”
“No… no, I don’t think so”
“Okay, emergency services will be waiting for you”
The nonchalantness of that pilot is astounding.
to be fair, while it should be declared an emergency for priority, engine failure is rarely a big deal nowadays when most planes have more than 2 engines. i mean, assuming there's no smoke or fire.
@@chrisrelhard What do you mean? The norm today is twinjets. There are still trijets and quadjets flying but no quadjets are still in production and the only trijets still in production are small business jets.
@bassbass69 and also a plane can fly on only a single engine… but you’re also trained to know that an engine out may only be a symptom and not the actual problem itself and the plane should be landed as soon as possible.
There was a fedex flight some years ago that was part of an attempted hijacking by an off duty pilot catching a ride on the flight. He attempted to kill the pilots and hijack to purposefully crash the flight in order to commit suicide and give his family an insurance payout for his death, all while covering up the evidence in the subsequent crash. He wasn’t successful but it’s a prime example of why guns can be of use on cargo flights. Or at least they could be of use in those situations but few if any others on cargo flights.
My father was a fighter pilot. He never really talked about it with anyone, but I agree with you Simon, it is a profession that sounds pretty damn cool.
found out my grandfather's brother was in the army air corps in WWII. my grandfather was stuck hauling timber from Oregon to San Francisco for the pacific front.
My pilot was a father fighter.
Pilots are chill because they're always high.
I'll walk myself out.
You mentioned being a mile high, but in truth a commercial airline is approximately 6 miles up when cruising.
Hi Sam glad to see you’re still alive!
I also remember a story on the news in the 70s when Canada was just switching to the metric system. A plane crash was investigated and it was discovered that the plane had simply run out of fuel because the fuel was ordered in one unit and the person fuelling the plane used the unit in the other system (I think it was ordered in kg and filled in lbs)
The Gimli Glider
The Gimli Glider
On a 737: just pop a window! No need to bother with the emergency exit!
it will rip itself apart (NGs), or MCAS will crash you (MAXs), come on Boeing. Unfuck yourself lol.
If it's Boeing I ain't going
If Spirit worked on it. Walk away.
They're the ones who install the plugs.
If that’s too much work just wait and midway through the flight the hull of the aircraft will break away on its own.
Spirit is the one who makes and installs the plugs. Blame the proper people.
Sam going way back showing the title card of The Critic, great show.
My dad recently finished a career in electro-magnetic compatibility testing. He personally designed some of the machines to test control equipment for safety when lightning strikes the craft.
While the flight crew training is technically open to all, generally the only that gets approved to get trained are former police, military, and active reservists. 14:07
As someone who was flying over the Amazon forest and the plane actually got hit by lightning TWICE... I can testify it is scary as hell... but it taught me one thing: only get scared when the flight attendants are...
"Agent Hitler, FBI" never fails to make me laugh.
Off work and looking so forward to this... got my comfy pj's on, a plate full of tacos and my pup dog laying next to me.... and a new BB 💕 life is good 💕 hope everyone is well!!! Now onto some rants and laughs✌
You can open airplane doors in flight... just only at really low altitudes. The door is seal against the plane mainly by the difference in air pressure inside vs outside the plane. IIRC this is about 4 or 5 PSI and the door is several hundred square inches so that is more than one (or two or three) people can handle.
On the other hand if you are really low... outside and inside pressures are equalised so it is just a door... (lookup asiana door open in flight)
😎 Don't forget there's one sunken in the sediment off Tybee Island here in Georgia. But I wasn't thinking a broken arrow situation but more that no Enemy bombs have been dropped here in the States except at Pearl Harbor. We bombed the Aleutians in Alaska when Japan tried to invade there, and we've accidentally bombed ourselves fairly often.
Here we go, tangent train ready and all aboard!!!
At altitude and at pressure, no, you cannot open a door on an airliner.
How did you know a pilot once had to tell me ‘no more wine!!!’. Well it was actually whiskey but same same. And my name is Peter!!!😂😂😂😂
2:30 Simon says (lol) he is going on a plane in a month and what is the first thought? Let's make a script about things you dont want to know while flying and have him read it the week before. What's next? Movie night the day before will be Final Destination?
I was returning to the US from a business trip to Ireland in 2014. The British Airways A380 to LAX was scheduled to leave Heathrow at 4:30 PM local time. After some time, perhaps 45 minutes, we hadn’t departed.
The captain announces, and these were his exact words: “We have to reboot this aircraft”. At the time I was a database administrator; I’d be3n working on an E-Business implementation - I’d also worked as a Unix Sysadmin. Hearing this, my IT orientation imagined all kinds of things (aside: rebooting is an often used method to resolve problems on servers or is done as part of patching or maintenance)
The captain turned everything and I mean everything off. We sat for a half hour in darkness and silence - then everything came back on, and the captain says, “there’s a leak in the cargo area; regulations require a supply of drinkable water for take off - the luggage will have to be unloaded and the leak repaired”. We sat for another 2 hours (we weren’t allowed to deplane), then took off
We arrived at LAX very early morning, 1-2 AM Pacific. As there were limited Jetways to accommodate the A380, we landed practically in Santa Monica and 12 buses were dispatched to take the passengers to Bradley Terminal. TSA was not thrilled at having to process 300+ passengers and 25 crew at that time of day
I work for an airline, here is my take.
1. FAs being trained for self-defense is a fairly new move. It started during the pandemic when people decided to become absolutely horrid to one another and to FAs, far moreso than ever before. Not all airlines do this training, but more and more unions are pushing them to add it where it hasn't been yet.
2. Fuel: there is a sweet spot that is aimed for. No plane is ever going to head out with too little fuel unless there are *unforecasted* storms and then they might not have holding fuel or fuel to a distant alternate on board because it wasn't supposed to be needed. Even so, there is still always enough fuel to divert to a nearby alternate and there is always a nearby alternate. At last check there were 21 incidents in aviation history regarding inadequate fuel (most due to improper maintenance and leaks), while there have been untold billions of flights total (16.5mil flights a year in the US alone, not including GA not controlled by the FAA). The most recent incident in 2023 was because a Cessna pilot passed out and the plane literally just flew until it was out of fuel (same thing happened in 2022, maybe don't fly on private charters). With today's standards for weight and balance, safety, and fueling, don't worry about commercial flights running out of fuel. In case you're still wondering, where I work we are expected to land with no less than 4,400 pounds of fuel on board, which is about an hour of extra flight time. Otherwise you're going into the final reserve, which means a lot of paperwork and explaining why you under-fueled. Avoiding that is preferable.
3. My airline doesn't hand out blankets/pillows, so I can't speak to this. That said, I would NEVER use an airline blanket or pillow for obvious reasons. People are disgusting.
4. Federal Flight Deck Officers (FFDOs) can carry a gun, but someone has to want to, apply for it, pass a background check, and attend training. Most don't bother with this. The ones that do are probably the same ones who have a storm shelter full of canned beans and AR15 ammo. *eyeroll* Most never bother; they are there to fly the plane, not fight terrorists.
5. Oh my gosh so much lightning, haha. It's fine. They're engineered for that. Hail is the real problem. Maybe don't look up pictures of planes that flew through hail cores....
This is America, where we have something called "Gun Bingo" where you have 10 chances to win a free gun
the myth of handguns being prized in breakfast cereal boxes is just a myth. cereal makers are too stingy.
Are you serious? Never have I seen that. Is it a southern thing? Because it sounds like something you'd only find in thr south.
Nope, northern Indiana xD
The plane that ran out of fuel in a holding pattern near JFK was an Air Avianca. It crashed adjacent to John McEnroe’s residence in Lloyd’s Neck, Long Island
My two eldest brothers were rocket surgeons. Next brother is a master carpenter. Next is a nuclear engineer. Not much to live up to, there.
Can't wait for Kelsey to react to this
I was a flight attendant years ago on small, 50-seater planes. We were rarely given clean, washed blankets for our planes. After each flight, we would collect all of the blankets, fold them, and put them back in the overhead bin for passengers to use on the next flight. I know the ones that were wrapped were washed, as I could smell it when the airline was doing laundry.
Always down for the Aviation Blaze! 🚁🔥
Weird flex, but I was super excited seeing one of the planes I work on often on the episode.
I'm friends with a few flight attendants. As sweet as they are, I 100% believe they could drop a linebacker and never break their smile.
Simon, did you know that most hotels just change pillow cases and sheets and leave the same pillows and blankets and everything else on the bed unless they're noticeably stained. And most hotels require ridiculously short times to clean rooms from their housekeeping staff
To answer your question at 16:45 regarding firearms in planes.
Law enforcement (and I assume pilots) can only use fragment bullets.
I will explain the difference:
A normal bullet solid head can punch a hole in a person or a plane, which leads to decompression.
A fragment bullet is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. Once it leaves the barrel it's like a dozen fragments spreading out at the target. Now they are less lethal, they will incompasicate a person, but it will not puncture a hole in the plane. I.e no risk to it.
FedEx Flight 705 is a good example of why pilots of cargo planes might want to carry firearms. Maybe Simon could do an episode on it. The story is crazy!
Last time I flew ( late 1980's) due to my broken back I stood in the Galley with the stewards. Only time I sat was take-off & landing. This was a 4 hour flight which means I was standing for a little over 3 hours. Now a days I would get locked up. We hit some moderate turbulence and I was fine. A woman in the last row was freaking and I walked up to her and calmed her down. When I went back to my seat for landing she said she thought I was part of the crew. I said no, but she did thank me for calming her down.
being taught how to handle one's self and being able to actually handle one's self in a conflict are very different things, unless a person actively trains and spars on a weekly basis, they are really not much better than an average person when in a physical altercation. The major hindrance for most ppl when in a physical altercation is anxiety and fear, something that requires constant training to nullify, simply being taught some "self-defence techniques" often isn't enough.
9:54 The incident Simon is referring to is this one, when an airplane was forced into multiple holds on their way up the coast due to a stubborn east coast storm that prevented the plane (among many others) from landing and resulted in tons of delays. "Avianca Flight 52, a Boeing 707-321B arriving from Bogotá and Medellin, crashed at Cove Neck, Long Island, after a missed approach to runway 22L at JFK and subsequently running out of fuel. 73 passengers and crew perished while 85 survived". The crew did not do a good job communicating to JFK control how low on fuel they were, and I think only called a "Mayday" when they were finally on their way in but completely out of fuel.
So to clarify simon when stressed gives himself a stroke.. i admire the honesty 😂
The air rage segment had me rolling 😂😂😂
You don't need to open the emergency doors nowadays, they open themselves.
Just like the whistleblower "took his own life"
When simon says that hes got a clean pair there dose that mean the pair he is wearing has a large skid mark on them
I know you credit the writer on screen during videos but I feel they should also be credited in the descriptions of videos as well for those who listen to the videos and want to know who wrote the episode, or for those episodes you don't say the writer's name out loud for those who happen to be visually handicapped.
I once dined with a guy who used to own an aerospace parts factory (that much I could confirm). He bragged about knowing where the fire axes on most modern Airbus variants are, and not all possible locations are apparently in the cockpit (this I had to take his word for it).
Pretty sure that the pressure difference would make it impossible to open the emergency exit at anything above 10,000 feet
Yes, Simon, if you declare an emergency, you can land at any available airport on any available runway. Declare the emergency, but, most importantly, continue to fly the plane. Neither your words nor ATC can land the plane for you, unless your aircraft is set up for a Category 2/Category 3 autoland and your engines are still running.
Niiiiiiiccccceeee the critic reference
How can Sheath make stuff for teh ladies? They don't have a sword to stow away!
They have flaps to hold the flaps separately for improved airflow.
8:32 Air Traffic Control HATE this one priority landing trick...
When I think of guns on a plane, I go back to the Goldfinger scene where Goldfinger shoots the window and is sucked out of the plane.
Of course you can't open the emergency exits in flight.
That's for Boeing to do as a surprise.
I can’t tell if Simon needs more Adderall or less Adderall
Mental note. If I ever find myself on a plane and David walliams is a flight attendant... get off the plane 🤣🤣
Also there’s a great chapter about black box thinking in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers.
There have been a couple of cases were airliners have ran out of fuel. A couple of times with conversion errors ie. One famous was a plane over the atlantic that ran out, and glided into the azores and landed 45ish minutes later. Must be nice being a passenger noticing all engines go out over the ocean - and yeah, lights etc also.... But the pilots pretty quickly calculated how to glide in, so they knew it would be "fine" - Im sure tense for them as well
the most famous is the "gimli glider" where a canadian crew at the time of metrication, calculated their fuel in gallons and purchased it in liters, resulting in running out of fuel halfway to their destination, and gliding to a landing on a retired runway that was being used as a drag strip. (the name of the place they landed was "gimli", or something sufficiently similar)
Stress and Anxiety can cause rage... That's probably the reason for both examples. When you're focused and computer lag is slowing down your work... you get rage. When you're anxious and fixating on every single thing you can be quick to rage because everyone else isn't taking it as serious as you think it is.
Ive only now realized thats Simon keeps yelling at his plant, Peter. Ive always heard PETA and wondered if PETA was giving factboy a hard time over the whole dog genocide thing. . . HA!
Knowing PETA and their animal shelters... They'd have no problem with Simon until he goes on a rant about how much he loves meat
A mile? More like 6.5, Simon
My son-in-law is an actual rocket scientist. But he looks like an overgrown hippie. LOL
About it not being possible to open an emergency exit in flight these days:
There was news that on May 26, 2023 a man opened an emergency exit on a South Korean Airbus A321-200. The plane landed safely and the man was arrested.
Reuters reported:
"The plane was two or three minutes away from landing when the male passenger sitting next to an emergency exit opened a cover and pulled a lever so the door opened with the plane about 200 metres (656 ft) off the ground".
If you could open doors mid flight, then we'd all be still on the last plane we boarded.
14:21 Simon apparently hasn't heard of FedEx Flight 705, which would also make for a good casual criminalist episode.
Look up The Gimli Glider for an exciting out of fuel story. Mentour Pilot has a lot of great explanations or aviation oopsies.
" Ladies and gentlemen, everything is fine, there are no problems. That engine was jettisoned as we didn't need it anymore and we can save the weight. "
Because of the pressurized cabin, it is physically impossible to open the door in flight. Unless the cabin loses all pressure, or the door fails and breaks, no human being would be able to overcome the force on the door and pull it open.
That door just fell off a flight recently
Or if they fall off. I mean, that's happened.
@@marctaylor1142 as I said in the comment, unless the door fails, you cannot pull it open. A functional door has literally thousands of pounds of pressure pushing against it, holding it closed.
@@Hollylivengood omg 2 in a row?? Learn how to read the comment before you make yourself look stupid. Obviously a broken door is a completely different story.
@@marctaylor1142 A door plug fell off a plane, which isn't exactly the same as a door. One that wasn't installed (or reinstalled from what I heard) correctly before that happened. I believe not installed correctly would fit into "fails or breaks" as its missing parts weren't holding it in place -- and it wasn't a human pushing on that door plug for it to fall off.
Now that said, there was also a door that was opened while in flight (it did not fall off the plane) which was thought to be impossible, but this occurred at low altitude and speed as the plane was landing. As this was nearing the ground, the aircraft no longer had a huge difference in pressure internally vs externally, which again makes @itstonberrytime pretty much correct.
I think Simon is right about the gun in the cockpit, thing. That way a pilot doesn't accidentally hit a passenger, also firing in the passenger area would probably be the job of the Flight Marshall. But if they make it past attendants, Marshall's, cockpit door, etc then yeah, pilot can start blasting.
Reminds me of a time when I was on an international flight and the plane that kept circling because of a storm, and after a long time the pilot said:
“We’re running out of fuel, so I’m gonna find a place to land, or whatever”
We ended up landing on a farm in the middle of nowhere
Simon didn't know about the Fedex cargo flight with an employee who was hoping a ride, attacked the two pilots with a hammer attempting to kill them.
The New York fuel story was Avianca Airlines from Bogota January 1990. About half the people onboard survived the crash.
"Welcome to the Glockpit!"
When it comes to the amount of fuel on a plane, keep in mind that the Captain has to approve of the amount of fuel that the plane carries, and they're flying on the plane with you. If a pilot is afraid that the plane will fall out of the sky while they're on it, they will insist that more fuel is put on the plane, and the plane isn't going anywhere without two pilots.
Simon there is a case of a FedEx pilot who was about to lose his job, while going through a divorce with two kids in high school. To set his family up with enough money he determined that catching a ride with another crew, incapacitating them and letting the 30 minute cockpit voice recorder (CVR)run out, then cutting the power to the CVR and flight data recorder (black box) and crashing the plane....into FedEx headquarters so they could cash in on his life insurance was the way to go.
Lots of pilots have crashed on purpose cargo or passenger flights it isn't always passengers the other people on the flight deck can be suicidal.
The reason why pilots can't shoot into cabin is because you need to be a very good marksman to not hit passengers (including through secondary penetration). Flight Marshals are trained for shooting in these situations and require much more stringent training and recertification than pilots.
There is always a doctor onboard. Passenger medical emergencies are quite common and every time I've dealt with one there is always a doctor onboard.
Although my favourite was when a pilot asked if security was waiting at the gate when they had a medical emergency, when asked why they needed security for a medical issue they stated, the passenger got violent, so they "knocked them out", that was why they now had a medical issue 😂
That joke about the 4 engines actually happened on BA flight 009 in 1982. Flew through a volcanic eruption. The chill captain passed away last month (March 2024). RIP Captain Moody.
12:54 yeah but that's like saying I'm going to take my own bedding to a hotel. They take the same level of "care and attention" to laundry with their bedding.